A condition in which one or more people, often in the form of a committee, progressively increase the scope and complexity of a project until the project is deemed infeasible and subsequently cancelled to the detriment of all involved.

Such projects are typically of a technical nature. Likewise someone who commits creeping featurism is most likely to be an engineer or otherwise technically advanced but not business minded.

Although market research showed that a second factory would be profitable, once the engineering department became involved, creeping featurism set in and it was self-evident that an additional plant was not a viable idea.